Mickey Spillane: Survival... ZERO!

"Want an educated opinion?"

"Never mind. It's better that you knew so you wouldn't be guessing in front of the wrong people."

I took a pull on the butt and blew a shaft of smoke in his direction. "So?"

"A sharp medic in the hospital didn't like the symptoms. They autopsied him immediately and confirmed their suspicions. He was infected by one of the newer and deadlier bacteria strains."

"Unusual?"

"This was. The culture was developed in government laboratories for C.G. Warfare only. They're not sure of the contagion factor and don't want to start a panic."

"Maybe he was a worker there."

"We're checking that out now. Anyway, just keep it to yourself. If this thing gets around we'll know the source it came from."

"You shouldn't be so trusting then."

"Oh, hell, get out of here, Mike."

I snubbed out the butt in his ashtray, grinned and went through the door. Eddie Dandy would give his left whoosis for this scoop, but I wasn't in the market for left whoosises.

I managed to reach Velda just before she went out to lunch and told her I wouldn't be in the rest of the day. She had already cleaned up most of the paperwork and before she could start in rearranging the furniture I said, "Look, honey, one thing you can do. Go to Lippy's bank and find the clerk he deposited that money with."

"Pat has a record of that."

"Yeah, of the amounts. What I want to know is if he remembered what denominations of bills were deposited."

"Important?"

"Who can tell? I'm just not satisfied with the answers, that's all. I’ll check back with you later."

I hung up and went back into the afternoon rain. A couple were getting out of a cab on the corner and I grabbed it before anyone else could and told the driver where to go.

Woodring Ballinger had a showpiece office on the twenty-first floor of a Fifth Avenue building but he never worked there. His operating space was the large table in the northeast corner of Finero's Steak House just off Broadway, a two-minute walk to Times Square. There were three black phones and a white one in front of him and the two guys he was with were in their early thirties

with the total businessman look. Only they both had police records dating back to their teens. That businessman look was one that Ballinger never could hope to buy. He tried hard enough, with three-hundred-buck suits and eighty-dollar shoes, but he still looked like he just came off a dock after pushing a dolly of steel around. Scar tissue laced his eyebrows and knuckles, he always needed a shave and seemed to have a perpetual sneer plastered on his mouth.

I said, "Hello, Woody."

He only half looked at me. "What the hell do you want?"

'Tell your boys to blow."

Both of them looked up at me a little amused. When I reached for my deck of cigarettes they saw the .45 in the holster and stopped being amused. Woody Ballinger said, "Go wait in the bar."

Obediently, they got up, went past me without another glance and pulled up stools at the bar with their backs to us. I sat down opposite Woody and waved the waiter over to bring me a beer.

"You lost, Hammer?"

"Not in this town. I live here. Or have you forgotten?" I gave him a dirty grin and when he scowled I knew he remembered, all right.

"Cut the crap. What d'you want?"

"You had your wallet lifted not long ago."

His fingers stopped toying with his glass. The waiter came, set the beer down and I sipped the head off it. "What's new about that? The cops found it."

" I found it," I said. "Yours wasn't the only one in the pile."

"So okay. I get my license back. There wasn't no money in it. The bum who lifted it grabbed that. Two hundred and twelve bucks. Where'd you find it?"

"Doesn't matter. The guy's dead who was holding it. Somebody carved him apart for nothing. The money was all in the bank."

"Hell, I'd sure like to get my hands on the bastard. Hittin' me, the dirty punk. Maybe he's better off." Woody stopped then, his eyes screwing half shut. "Why tell me about it anyway?"

"Because maybe you might know what dips are working the area. If you don't know, maybe you can find out."

"What for? If the guy's dead he ..."

"Because I don't like to think it was the guy who was killed. So poke around. You know who to ask."

"Go ask them yourself, buster."

"No, you do it, Woody. I haven't got tune." I finished my beer, threw a buck on the table and got up. When I went by the bar I tapped one of the business types on the shoulder and said, "You can go back now."

They just looked at me, picked up their drinks and went back to their boss without a word. Ballinger chose his people carefully.

It wasn't too long ago that the East Side past Lexington had been just one long slum section with a beautiful vitality all its own you couldn't duplicate anywhere in the world. Then they had torn down the elevated and let the light in and it was just too much for the brilliant speculators to miss.

Oh, the slums were still there, isolated pockets nestling shoulder to shoulder with the sterile facades of the expensive high rise apartments, tiny neighborhoods waiting for the slam of the iron ball to send them into an oblivion of plaster dust and crumpled bricks. If an inanimate thing could die, the city was dying of cancerous modernism. One civilization crawling over another. Then there would be ruins laid on top of ruins. I could smell the artificially cooled air seeping from the huge glassed doorways around the uniformed doormen and thought, hell, I liked it better the other way.

Miss Heidi Anders occupied 24C, a corner patio apartment on the good side of the building where the sun came in all day and you weren't forced to see how others lived just a ninety-degree turn away from you. The doorman announced me, saying it was in connection with the compact she had lost and I heard her resonant voice come right out of the wall phone and say, "Oh, yes, the policeman. Please send him up."

The doorman would have liked to mix a little small talk with me but the elevator was empty and I stepped inside, pushed number twenty-four and took the ride upstairs.

I had only seen production photos of Heidi Anders, commercial pictures in the flowing gowns she generally wore in the Broadway musicals. For some reason I had always thought of her as the big robust type who could belt a song halfway across the city without a mike. I wasn't quite ready for the pert little thing in the white hip-hugger slacks and red bandana top that left her all naked in between. The slacks were cut so low there was barely enough hip left to hug them up. And if the knot on the bandanna top slipped even a fraction of an inch it was

going to burst right off her. What got me, though, were the eyelashes she had painted around her navel. The damn thing seemed to be inspecting me.

All I could say was, "Miss Anders?"

She gave me a nervous little smile and opened the door all the way. "Yes ... but please, call me Heidi. Everybody does. Come in, come in." Her tongue made a quick pass across her lips and her smile seemed a little forced. No wonder cops were lonely. Even if they thought you were one they got the jumps.

"Hammer. Mike Hammer."

She took my coat and hat, slipped them on a rack, then led me into the spacious living area of the apartment. She didn't walk. She had a gait all her own, a swaying, rolling, dancing motion that put all her muscles into play. Unconsciously, she flipped the lovely tousle of ash-blonde hair over her head, spun around with her arms spread in a grand theatrical gesture and said, "Home!"

It might have been home to her, but it looked like some crazy love nest to me. It was all pillows, soft couches and wild pictures, but it sure looked interesting. "Nice," I said.

She took a half jump into one of the overstuffed chairs and sank down into it. "Sit, Mr. Hammer. May I make you a drink? But then, policemen never drink on duty, do they?"